Initiative Psychic Energy by Warren Hilton

19 Pages·2021·0.21 MB·English

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Initiative Psychic Energy, by Warren Hilton

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Initiative Psychic Energy
Being the Sixth of a Series of Twelve Volumes on the
Applications of Psychology to the Problems of Personal and
Business Efficiency

Author: Warren Hilton

Release Date: December 17, 2005 [EBook #17334]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INITIATIVE PSYCHIC ENERGY ***

Produced by David Clarke, Sankar Viswanathan, and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/Million Book Project)

Applied Psychology

INITIATIVE

PSYCHIC ENERGY

Being the Sixth of a Series of

Twelve Volumes on the Applications

of Psychology to the Problems of

Personal and Business

Efficiency

BY

WARREN HILTON, A.B., L.L.B.

FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

ISSUED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF

THE LITERARY DIGEST

FOR

The Society of Applied Psychology

NEW YORK AND LONDON

1920

COPYRIGHT 1914

BY THE APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO

CONTENTS

Chapter
Page

I. MENTAL SECOND WIND

STICKING TO THE JOB
3

THE LAGGING BRAIN
4

RESERVE SUPPLIES OF POWER
5

"BLUE" MONDAYS
6

HOW TO STRIKE ONE'S STRIDE
7

THE SPUR OF DESIRE
8

HOW TO RELEASE STORED-UP ENERGIES
9

THE LAWYER WHO "OVERWORKS"
10

EXCITEMENT AND THE HERO
12

ENDURING POWER OF MIND
15

II. RESERVES OF POWER

MAN'S POTENTIAL AND KINETIC ENERGIES
19

HOLDING THE TOP PACE
20

GENIUS AND THE MASTER MAN
21

MENTAL EFFECTS OF CITY LIFE
22

NEW-FOUND ENERGIES EXPLAINED
24

QUICKENED MENTALITY
25

FAST LIVING AND LONG LIVING
26

PROFESSOR PATRICK'S EXPERIMENTS
27

RATIO BETWEEN REPAIR AND DEMAND
28

PYGMIES AND GIANTS
29

TRANSFORMING INERTNESS INTO ALERTNESS
30

HOW THE MIND ACCUMULATES ENERGY
31

THE THRESHOLD OF INHIBITION
32

HIDDEN STRENGTH
33

GIVING A MAN SCOPE
34

III. THE INITIATIVE ENERGY OF SUCCESS

SOURCES OF PERSISTENCE
39

IMPORTANCE OF THE MENTAL SETTING
41

Sticking to the

Job

IDEAS ALL MEN RESPOND TO
42

HOW TO EXALT THE PERSONALITY
43

"GOOD STARTERS" AND "STRONG FINISHERS"
44

STEPS IN SELF-DEVELOPMENT
45

SAVING A THOUSAND A YEAR
46

LOOKING FOR A "SOFT SNAP"
47

DRAWING POWER FROM ON HIGH
48

THE MAN WHO LASTS
50

IV. HOW TO AVOID WASTES THAT DRAIN THE ENERGY OF SUCCESS

SPEEDING THE BULLET WITHOUT AIMING
53

WHY MOST MEN FAIL
54

THE SUCCESSFUL PROMOTER
56

THE HUMAN DYNAMO
57

COOL BRAINS AND HOT BOXES
58

MARVELOUS INCREASED EFFICIENCY HANDLING "PIG"
59

"OVERLOADED" HUMAN ENGINES
60

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT OF SELF
61

PHYSIOLOGICAL CAUSES OF WASTE
62

TESTS FOR SENSORY DEFECTS
63

MENTAL FRICTION AND INNER WHIRLWINDS
65

PROMINENT TRAITS OF GREAT ACHIEVERS
67

WHY A MAN BREAKS DOWN
70

HOW TO ECONOMIZE EFFORT
71

HOW YOUR MENTAL CAPITAL IS DISSIPATED
72

CONQUERING INDECISION
73

WHY "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" WORKS
74

HOW TO RELEASE PENT-UP POWER
75

PROPER RATIO BETWEEN WORK AND REST
77

DETERMINING YOUR NORM OF EFFICIENCY
79

V. THE SECRET OF MENTAL EFFICIENCY

WHERE ENERGY IS STORED
83

BODILY EFFECTS OF IDEAS
84

IMPULSES AND INHIBITIONS
85

TRAINING FOR MENTAL "TEAM-WORK"
87

RUST AND THE "DAILY GRIND"
88

IDEAS THAT HARMONIZE
89

FIVE RULES FOR CONSERVING ENERGY
90

BUSINESS LUCK AND "BLUE-SKY" THEORIES
94

DEVICES FOR COMMERCIAL EFFICIENCY
95

Chapter I

MENTAL SECOND WIND

Are you an unusually persevering and persistent person? Or, like most of us, do you sometimes find
it difficult to stick to the job until it is done? What is your usual experience in this respect?

Is it not this, that you work steadily along until of a sudden you become conscious of a feeling of weariness, crying
"Enough!" for the time being, and that you then yield to the impulse to stop?

[3]

The Lagging

Brain

Reserve

Supplies of

Power

"Blue"
Mondays

How to Strike
One's Stride

The Spur of

Desire

How to
Release
Stored-Up
Energies

The Lawyer

Who

"Overworks"

Assuming that this is what generally happens, does this feeling of fatigue, this impulse to rest, mean that your mental
energy is exhausted?

Suppose that by a determined effort of the will you force your lagging brain to take up the thread of
work. There will invariably come a new supply of energy, a "second wind," enabling you to forge ahead with a
freshness and vigor that is surprising after the previous lassitude.

Nor is this all. The same process may be repeated a second time and a third time, each new effort of the will being
followed by a renewal of energy.

Many a man will tell you that he does his best work in the wee watches of the morning, after
tedious hours of persevering but fruitless effort. Instead of being exhausted by its long hours of
persistent endeavor, the mind seems now to rise to the acme of its power, to achieve its supreme
accomplishments. Difficulties melt into thin air, profound problems find easy solution. Flights of

genius manifest themselves. Yet long before midnight such a one had perhaps felt himself yield to fatigue and had tied a
wet towel around his head or had taken stimulants to keep himself awake.

The existence of this reserve supply of energy is manifested in physical as well as mental effort.

Men who work with their heads and men who work with their hands, scholars and Marathon runners, must alike testify
to the existence of reserve supplies of power not ordinarily drawn upon.

If we do not always or habitually utilize this reserve power, it is simply because we have
accustomed ourselves to yield at once to the first strong feeling of fatigue.

Evidence of this same fact appears in our feelings on different days. How often does a man get up from his breakfast-
table after a long night's rest, when he should be feeling fresh and invigorated, and say to himself, "I don't feel like
working today." And it may take him until afternoon to get into his workaday stride, if, indeed, he reaches it at all.

You cannot yourself be immune from the feeling on certain days that you are not at your best.
Somehow or other, your wits seem befogged. You hesitate to undertake important interviews.
Your interest lags. And though crises arise in your business, you feel weighted down and unable to

meet them with that shrewd discernment and decisiveness of action of which you know yourself capable.

But you realize, in your inmost self, that if you continue to exert the will and persistently hold yourself to the
business in hand, sooner or later you will warm to the work, enthusiasm will come, the clouds will be dispelled,
the husks will fly. Yet you have had no rest; on the contrary, you have, by continued conscious effort, consumed
more and more of your vital energy.

Obviously it was not rest that you needed.

What you required was the impulse of some strong desire that should carry you over the threshold
of that first inertia into the wide field of reserve energy so rarely called upon and so rich in power.

Under the lashings of necessity, or the spur of love or ambition, men accomplish feats of mental and physical endurance
of which they would have supposed themselves incapable. Here is what a certain lawyer says of his early struggles:

"When I was twenty-three years old, married, and with a family to support, I entered the law
course of a great university. Of the many students in my class, seven, including me, were making a
living while studying law.

"By special arrangement, I was relieved from attendance at lectures and simply required to pass

examinations on the various subjects, and was thus enabled to retain my place as principal of a large public school.
During the third and last year of my law course, I was principal of a public day school of two thousand children and an
alternate night school with an enrolment of seven hundred and fifty, and I worked at the law three nights in the week and
all day Sunday.

"After eight months of this, the final examinations came around. They consumed a full week—from
nine in the morning until five or six at night. I had no opportunity for review, so I rented a room near
the law school to save the time going and coming and reviewed each night the subjects of
examination for the following day.

"I did not sleep more than two hours any night in that week. On Thursday, while bolting a bit of luncheon, a fishbone
stuck in my throat. Fearful of losing the result of my year's effort, I returned to my work, suffering much pain, and kept
at it until Saturday night, when the examinations were concluded. The next day the surgeon who removed the fishbone
said there was no reason why I should not have had 'a bad case of gangrene.'

"When I look back on that year's work I don't see how I stood it. I don't see how I kept myself at it, day in, day out,
month after month without rest, recreation or relief. I am sure I could never go through it again, even if I had the courage
to undertake it.

"I ranked second in a class of one hundred and eighty in my law examinations, won the second prize for the best

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

Excitement
and the Hero

Enduring

Power of Mind

Man's

Potential and

Kinetic
Energies

Holding the
Top Pace

Genius and
the Master

Man

graduating thesis, received a complimentary vote for class oratorship, and much to my surprise was soon after offered
an assistant superintendency of the public schools by the school board, who knew nothing of my studies and thought my
work as a teacher worthy of promotion.

"It was not only the hardest year's work but the best year's work I ever did. It exemplifies my invariable experience
that the more we want to do the more we can do and the better we can do it."

The following is an extract from a letter quoted by Professor James as written by Colonel Baird-
Smith after the siege of Delhi in 1857, to the success of which he largely contributed:

"My poor wife had some reason to think that war and disease, between them, had left very little of a husband to take
under nursing when she got him again. An attack of scurvy had filled my mouth with sores, shaken every joint in my
body and covered me all over with scars and livid spots, so that I was unlovely to look upon. A smart knock on the
ankle joint from the splinter of a shell that burst in my face, in itself a mere bagatelle of a wound, had been of necessity
neglected under the pressing and insistent calls upon me, and had grown worse and worse until the whole foot below
the ankle became a black mass and seemed to threaten mortification. I insisted, however, on being allowed to use it
until the place was taken, mortification or no; and though the pain was sometimes horrible I carried my point and kept
up to the last.

"On the day after the assault I had an unlucky fall on some bad ground, and it was an open question for a day or two
whether I hadn't broken my arm at the elbow. Fortunately it turned out to be only a severe sprain, but I am still
conscious of the wrench it gave me. To crown the whole pleasant catalogue, I was worn to a shadow by a constant
diarrhoea and consumed as much opium as would have done credit to my father-in-law (Thomas De Quincey).

"However, thank God, I have a good share of Tapleyism in me and come out strong under difficulties. I think I may
confidently say that no man ever saw me out of heart or ever heard a complaining word from me even when our
prospects were gloomiest. We were sadly crippled by cholera, and it was almost appalling to me to find that out of
twenty-seven officers I could only muster fifteen for the operations of the attack. However, it was done,—and after it
was done came the collapse.

"Don't be horrified when I tell you that for the whole of the actual siege, and in truth for some little
time before, I almost lived on brandy. Appetite for food I had none, but I forced myself to eat just
sufficient to sustain life, and I had an incessant craving for brandy, as the strongest stimulant I could
get. Strange to say, I was quite unconscious of its affecting me in the slightest degree.

"The excitement of the work was so great that no lesser one seemed to have any chance against it, and I
certainly never found my intellect clearer or my nerves stronger in my life."

Such is the profound resourcefulness and enduring power of the human mind.

Chapter II

RESERVES OF POWER

Stored-up energy not in use has been given a name by scientific men. They call it potential energy.
In this way it is distinguished from kinetic or circulating energy by which is meant energy that is at
work. For example, a ton of coal in the bin contains a certain amount of potential energy, which is
capable of being converted into kinetic energy by combustion.

You have a vast amount of potential energy over and above what you actually use. You have
formed the habit of giving up trying a thing as soon as you have spent the usual amount of effort on
it, and this without regard to whether or not you have accomplished anything.

While we all have the power of sustained mental activity, not one in ten thousand of us holds to the top pace.

Worse still, even such mental energy as we do consume is dispersed and scattered over a multitude of trivial interests
instead of being focused upon some one possessing aim.

We intend to show you how you can lose yourself in your work with an absorbing passion and how you can at
any time make special requisition upon your hidden stores of potential energy and draw new supplies of power
that will sweep you on to your goal.

More than anything else, it is the ability to do this that lifts the great men of the race above the
common run of mortals.

It is this that distinguishes genius from mediocrity. The master man transforms his vast stores of

reserve or potential energy into circulating or kinetic energy. His work glows with living fire.

[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]

[19]

[20]

[21]

Mental Effect
of City Life

New-Found

Energies
Explained

Quickened
Mentality

Fast Living
and Long

Living

Professor
Patrick's

Experiments

Ratio Between

Repair and

Demand

Yet, for every such man there are a multitude of others, equally gifted in some respect, but wanting that mysterious
"Open Sesame" which would discover their hidden mental riches, arouse them from their accustomed inferiority to their
best selves, and transform potentiality into accomplishment. So it comes about that most of us are gems that shine but to
illumine the "dark unfathomed caves of ocean," flowers born to "blush unseen."

Take an illustration of the way in which this reserve or potential energy is transformed into
circulating or kinetic energy. Suppose that you are a countryman and come to live in a large city.
The speed with which we do things, our habits of quick decision, the whirlwind of activities of the
busy man in town, appal you. You cannot see how we live through it. A day in the business district fills you with terror.
The tumult and danger make it seem "like a permanent earthquake."

But settle down to work here. And in a year you will have "caught the pulse beat," you will "vibrate to the city's rhythm,"
and if you only "make good" in your work, you will enjoy the strain and hurry, you will keep pace with the best of us,
and you will get more out of yourself in a day in the city than you ever did in a week on the farm.

This change in degree of mental activity does not necessarily mean that you are making more of a success of
life.

Your activities may be ill-directed. Your new-found powers may be misspent and dissipated.

But you are mentally more alert Your mental forces have been stimulated by the stirring environment.

And, mark this particularly, a number of mental pictures will pass across the screen of your
consciousness today in the same time that one mental image formerly required.

Now, you have learned that with every idea catalogued in memory, there is wrapped up and

stowed away an associated "feeling tone" and an associated impulse to some particular muscular action.

Assuming this, you must at once see that here is an explanation of your new-found energy.

Your quickened step, your new-found decisiveness of action, your more observant eye, your clear-cut speech instead
of the former drawling utterance, your livelier manner, your freshened enthusiasm and enjoyment of life—all of these are
but manifestations of a quickened intelligence.

They are the working out through the motor paths of mental impulses to muscular action.

And these impulses to muscular action come thronging into consciousness because the livelier
environment brings about a more rapid reproduction of memory pictures.

And here comes a particularly striking fact. One would naturally suppose that the more energy a man consumed, and
the faster he lived, the more quickly his vitality would be exhausted and the shorter his life would be.

As a matter of fact, by the divine beneficence of Providence, your organism is so ordered as to adapt itself within
certain wide limits to the demands made upon it.

You may call into play all the stored-up resources of your being and still not stake everything upon
a single throw. For the supply of mental energy is as inexhaustible as the reservoir of all past
experience, while the supply of physical energy involved in brain and nerve activity is, like the
immortal liver of Prometheus, renewed as fast as depleted.

Two sets of facts that have been established by elaborate scientific experiment will convince you of the truth of these
propositions.

Professor Patrick, of the State University of Iowa, conducted some of these experiments. He
caused three young men to remain awake for four successive days and nights. They were then
allowed to go to sleep, the purpose of the experiment being to determine just how much time
Nature required to recuperate from the long vigil. They were allowed to sleep themselves out, and
all woke up thoroughly rested. Yet the one who slept the longest slept only one-third longer than his customary
night's sleep.

You have doubtless had the same experience yourself many times. It all goes to show that if we are awake four times as
long as usual, we do not make up for it by sleeping four times as long, but four times as soundly, as customary. The
hard-working mechanic requires no more hours of sleep than the corner loafer, the active man of affairs no more than
the dawdler.

The time of tissue repair is about the same with all men under all conditions. It is the rate of
repair that varies with the demand that has been put upon the body.

Again, look at the same subject from the standpoint of food supply. On what you now eat and

drink you have a certain average weight. Eat, digest and assimilate a larger quantity of food and your weight will
increase. This increase will be greatest at the start and will gradually slow up until you shall have reached the point
beyond which you can gain no more. Given the same hygienic conditions that you have been accustomed to, you will
maintain yourself at the increased weight on the increased supply of food.

[22]

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

[27]

[28]

Pygmies and

Giants

Transforming
Inertness into

Alertness

How the Mind
Accumulates

Energy

The Threshold
of Inhibition

Hidden
Strength

Giving a Man

Scope

Sources of
Persistence

Now, all this involves clearly enough a greatly increased rate of activity on the part of the bodily
organs of assimilation and repair. It is a situation on all fours with that of the countryman whose rate
of brain activity has been stimulated by an increased mental demand.

No man will maintain that better, more nourishing and more liberal food rations, transformed into increased bodily
tissue, with a consequent greater weight and greater muscular strength, would result in a loss of vitality or the shortening
of a man's life.

Pygmies cannot become giants physically or intellectually. But as the puny youth can by systematic
exercise broaden his frame and develop his muscles into at least a semblance of the athlete, and can
then through his healthier appetite and his faster rate of repair maintain himself without effort at
the new standard; so can the mentally inert call forth their reserves of energy and maintain a

higher standard of activity and fruitfulness.

Few men live on the plane of their highest efficiency. Few search the recesses of the well-springs of power. The lives of
most of us are passed among the shallows of the mind without thought of the possibilities that lurk within the deeper
pools.

This accumulation of potential subconscious reserve energy is a result of the evolution of man and
the growing complexity of his life.

No man could, if he would, respond to all the impulses to muscular action aroused in him by sense-
impressions. It would be still less possible for him to respond to every impulse to muscular action awakened from the
past with the remembered thought with which it is associated.

Desire, interest, attention and the selective will must pick and choose among these multitudinous tendencies to action.

Here, then, is another fact that has immediate bearing upon your ability to carry out any ambition you may have. Your
every action is the net result of selection among a number of impulses and inhibitory forces or tendencies.

As a general thing, consciousness is made up of a number of conflicting ideas, each with its
associated feeling and its impulse to action. Just what you do in any particular case depends upon
what mental picture is strongest, is most vivid in consciousness, and thus able to overcome all

contrary tendencies.

As life becomes more and more complex, the number and variety of our sensory experiences increase correspondingly.
And so it comes about, that we have untold millions of sensory experiences, carrying with them the impulses to
muscular response, none of which, on account of the multiplicity of conflicting ideas, is ever allowed to find
release and actually take form in muscular activity.

The consequence is that only an exceedingly small proportion of the mental energy that is
developed within us is ever actually displayed. The rest is somehow and somewhere locked up
behind the inhibitory threshold. It is stored away in subconsciousness with the sensory
experiences of the past with which it is associated.

Quoting Mr. Waldo P. Warren: "Much of the strength within men is hidden, awaiting an occasion to
reveal it. The head of a department in a great manufacturing concern severed his connection with
the firm, his work falling upon a young man of twenty-five years. The young man rose to the

occasion, and in a very short time was conceded to be the stronger executive of the two. He had been with the concern
for several years, and was regarded as a bright fellow, but his marked success was a surprise to all who knew him—
even to himself.

"The fact is, the young man had that ability all the time and didn't know it; and his employers didn't know it. He might
have been doing greater things all along if there had been the occasion to reveal his strength.

"Do you employers and superior officers in business realize how much of this hidden strength there is in your men?
Perhaps a word from you, giving certain men more scope, would liberate that ability for the development of both your
business and your men.

"Do you workers know your own strength? Are you working up to your capacity? Or are you accepting the limits
which the circumstances place about you?"

Chapter III

THE INITIATIVE ENERGY OF SUCCESS

In such instances as we have recounted, men have found that persistent effort along certain lines has
had the effect of making presently available what would otherwise be simply unused storage

[29]

[30]

[31]

[32]

[33]

[34]

[35]

[39]

Importance of

the Mental

Setting

Ideas All Men
Respond to

How to Exalt

the

Personality

"Good

Starters" and

"Strong
Finishers"

Steps in Self-
Development

Saving a

Thousand a

Year

Looking for a
"Soft Snap"

batteries of reserve power. What was the source and inspiration for this persistent effort?

You will say that it was ambition or patriotism or some similar semi-emotional influence. And so it was. But what is
ambition, what is patriotism, what is any desire but a picturing to the mind's eye of the things desired, an
awakening of a mental image of the result to be attained, the reward that is to follow certain efforts? And these
mental pictures coming into consciousness have brought with them their associated emotions and their associated
impulses to muscular action, impulses appropriate to the picture and automatically tending to work its realization.

These impulses constitute the whole of man's achieving power. They are the Initiative Energy of all Success.

When you are afflicted with doubt and fear, timidity and lack of confidence, this means that your
mental inhibitions are too numerous, too high or too strong. Remove them and access is had to the
latent energy of accumulated and creative thought complexes. You will then become buoyant,
cheerful, overflowing with enthusiasm, and ready for a fresh, definite, active part in life.

Ideas, then, when latent, may be considered as possessing an energizing influence.

The same idea does not necessarily have the same effect upon the same persons at different times. What its effect may
be at any time or with any individual depends upon the make-up of the consciousness in which it finds itself.

The setting of consciousness may be entirely different upon the present appearance of the particular
idea from what it was on the occasion when this same idea last appeared. Yesterday there may
have been present no conflicting tendencies, and this particular idea may therefore have been

allowed free and joyous expression. Today other thoughts may be in the ascendency so that we look upon the idea of
yesterday with a feeling of revulsion.

The thought that aroused new energy in you yesterday may then sicken you at your task today. The thought that stirs the
soul of a vigorous man may shock the sensibilities of a delicate woman.

Yet there are some ideas to which all men in varying degrees seem alike to respond. How often in
battle have the failing spirits of an army been revived by the appearance of the leader shouting his
battle-cry and waving his shining sword! How often have men been roused to heights of heroic
achievement by the strains of martial music! How often have troops spent with exhaustion
responded to the call of such simple phrases as "The Flag," "Our Country," "Liberty," or such songs as "The
Marseillaise," "God Save the King," "Dixie"! These phrases are but the signs of ideas, yet the sounding of these phrases
has summoned these ideas into consciousness, and the summoning of these ideas into consciousness has placed
undreamed-of and immeasurable foot-pounds of energy on the hair-trigger of action.

And so it is with you. Down deep in the inmost chambers of your soul are untouched stores of
energy that properly applied will exalt your personality and illumine your career.

But to find and claim these hidden riches you must persevere. You must endure.

In a Marathon race it is endurance that wins. The graceful sprinter who is off with a leap at the bark of the pistol soon
falls by the wayside.

Life is a Marathon in which persistence triumphs.

There are many "good starters," but few "strong finishers." That is why the failures so outnumber the successes.

The man who travels fastest does more than he is told to do. To merely comply with a fixed routine
is to fall short of one's duty. The progressive man adds to the work of today his preparation for the
work of tomorrow. He delights in attempting more and more difficult tasks, because in every task
he sets himself he sees a step forward in the development of his own abilities. He loves his work more than he loves his
pay, and he delves deeper than the exigencies of the moment require, because he craves the power to do more.

Most men start with enthusiasm. No hours are too long, no task too difficult. But soon they tire. And lacking will-power
to persist, they succumb to the lure of distracting interests. They become disheartened and indifferent. And so they fail.

A young man married. He was proprietor of a flourishing "general" store in Princeton, Indiana. He
and his bride forthwith resolved that they could and would lay aside out of their income a thousand
dollars a year for ten years, by which time they would have ten thousand dollars and accumulated
interest and could go into business in a big city. At the end of the first year, when they took stock of

their savings, they decided that thereafter, instead of trying to save a thousand dollars a year for ten years, they would
undertake to save ten dollars a year for a thousand years and would be more apt to succeed. Today they are just where
they began.

You all know such men—men who are always starting and never finishing.

Ninety-five per cent of the men who go into business are "quitters." The very first disappointment
sends them scurrying to cover. They begin to look for a "soft snap" away from the firing line. Is it
any wonder that so few reach any great success?

[40]

[41]

[42]

[43]

[44]

[45]

[46]

[47]

Drawing

Power from on

High

The Man Who

Lasts

Speeding the
Bullet Without

Aiming

Why Most Men

Fail

The Successful

Promoter

That there is an enormous lack of appropriation of energy in most men's lives is an undoubted fact. Just where this
energy is stored, and just what its eternal significance may be, is immaterial to our purpose.

It may be that this reserve is Nature's safeguard against our extravagance.

It may be, as some philosophers contend, that the subconscious, with its vast stores of energy, is a higher, more spiritual
phase of man.

It may be that the subconscious is for each one of us his individual segment of the Divine Essence—
that it marks our "at-one-ment" with God.

It may be that to evoke these latent energies is to call upon those resources of our being which are

the embodiment within us of the spirit of the Creator of all things.

It may be that this Divine Essence, if adequately aroused, may exert an absolute transcendence over material things and
lift humanity to a God-like plane.

"What we call man," wrote Emerson, "the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent
himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect; but the real soul whose organ he is, would he let it appear
through his action, would make our knees bend." "I said, ye are gods," quoth the Psalmist. "Be ye perfect, even as your
Father," was the injunction of the Master.

Whatever the eternal significance of your latent energy may be, the fact remains that it is yours, and yours to use.

If you are to succeed, if you are to do big things, you must be a man of "doggedness." You must keep your eyes trained
everlastingly upon the vision of the thing you want. You must stay in the race until you get your "second wind." You
must be master of yourself and draw freely on your stored-up powers.

Do as we shall tell you in this Course and you will become a master man, the kind of man who
"lasts," the kind of man who works his imagination overtime, the kind of man who can strain his
energies to the utmost and then, finding himself still a failure, can rise "like the glow of the sun" to do

bolder and bigger things—the kind of man who wins.

Chapter IV

HOW TO AVOID WASTES THAT DRAIN THE ENERGY OF SUCCESS

We have shown you that you have within you the potentialities of success in the form of latent
mental energy. We have shown you that your ability to achieve depends upon your ability to utilize
to the full your underground mental resources.

But success demands that you do more than merely use all your mental energies. You must use them intelligently.

Most men fail because they speed the bullet without aiming. They fire at random, and so bag no
game.

Your pent-up mental energy is the powder in the cartridge. Its usefulness depends upon the man behind the gun.

To succeed in business you must intelligently control and direct (1) your own mental energies, (2) the mental
energies of others.

The course of the average man through life is an aimless zigzag. It has neither direction nor purpose. It represents
wasted energy capriciously expended.

Mental energy is like water: it has a tendency to scatter. It is diffusive. It seeks release in a thousand different directions
at the same time.

As a boy, first learning to write, you were unable to prevent the simultaneous squirming of tongue and legs, all
ludicrously irrelevant to your purpose of writing. So now, as a business man, unless you have learned the secret of self-
mastery, you are unable to concentrate your efforts, your attention is easily distracted, you exhaust yourself in displays
of passion, you are forever doing things during business hours that have no relation to your business, you are forever
doing things in connection with your business that do not contribute to its progress, you expend just as much energy as
the accomplished executive or the successful "hustler," but you fritter it away in unprofitable activities.

To correct this is to gain mastery and power.

Concentrate your mental energies on one thing at a time. Stop spreading them around. The
promoter may have a dozen big enterprises under way at once, but he takes them up one at a time. He transfers his
whole mind and thought from one to the next. You cannot of course be eternally doing the same thing; but make no
mistake about it, the only way to succeed at anything is to consciously control your mental energies. You may throw

[48]

[49]

[50]

[53]

[54]

[55]

[56]

The Human

Dynamo

Cool Brains
and Hot Boxes

Marvelous
Increased
Efficiency
Handling

"Pig"

"Overloaded"

Human
Engines

Scientific

Management

of Self

Psychological

Causes of

Waste

Tests for
Sensory
Defects

them now into this attack, now into another; but you must always have a tight grip on yourself, or you cannot succeed.

You will often hear some "live-wire" business man spoken of as a "human dynamo." He has the
faculty of turning out a stupendous amount of work in a comparatively short time. How he can carry
in his mind the details of so many large projects, how he can accomplish so much in actual, tangible

results in many directions, how he can pull the strings of so many enterprises without getting lost in the maze of detail, is
the marvel of his associates. And yet this man is never "hurried, nor flurried, nor worried." But every word and every act
is straight to the point and productive of results worth while.

"A cool brain is the reverse of a hot box. It carries the business of the day along with a steady
drive, and is invariably the mark of the big man. The man who dispatches his work quietly,
promptly and efficiently, with no trace of fuss and flurry, is a big man. It is not the hurrying,
clattering and chattering individual who turns off the most work. He may imagine he is getting over a lot of track, but he
wastes far more than the necessary amount of steam in doing it. The fable of the hare and the tortoise would not be a
bad primer for a number of us, and the lesson relearned would not only be beneficial in a business-producing way, but it
would help us in the full enjoyment of our work."

Progress in mental efficiency must result from the application of knowledge of the mental machine.
Just as we watch the steam-engine and the electric motor to see that they are not "overloaded," so
we must watch the mental machine, that no more power be turned on than can be profitably
employed.

This principle has already been applied to physical labor by Mr. Frederick W. Taylor in his ground-

breaking studies in "scientific management." Mr. Taylor's celebrated experiments in the handling of pig-iron, by which
the quantity handled in a day by one man was increased from twelve and one-half tons to forty-seven and one-half tons,
"showed that a man engaged in such extremely heavy work could only be under load forty-three per cent of the
working day, and must be entirely free from load for fifty-seven per cent, to attain the maximum efficiency."

There is no reason why efficiency in mental effort should not be gauged just as accurately as in
muscular activity. If there are times when your wits are not as keen, when you have not the same
grasp of fundamentals, as at other times, it is because you are mentally "overloaded." It may be the
result of a great variety of causes. It may be from too many hours of continuous mental effort. But
the probabilities are that it is the result of vexation, worry, dissipation, or allowing the mind to be burdened with the
strain of vicious, or at least irrelevant and distracting, impulses and desires. And so efficiency is lost.

The "human dynamo" is a man who long ago learned the lesson of scientific management of his own
mental forces. He does one thing at a time, and does it the best he knows how. He directs the
whole power of his mentality to the one problem and solves it with accuracy and dispatch. There is
no more of a "load" on his "gray matter" than there is on that of the fretting, fuming, finger-biting

fritterer, but every pound of steam is spent in useful work.

Look at the victim of St. Vitus' dance. There you have an illustration of wasted energy. And it is mental energy, for
every muscular movement represents the release of thought power. The mental lives of most men are equally aimless.
They are lives of ceaseless activity producing nothing.

Sometimes it happens that a man is not working to advantage because of some defect in his
physical make-up. He may have defective vision or some peculiarity of hearing that renders him
unable to respond as quickly as he should to the demands made upon him. If these defects are
ascertained, it is usually a simple matter to correct the defects by mechanical means or readjust the
relative duties of different persons so that the defects will be minimized.

Where large numbers of people are employed, it is comparatively easy to use tests for discovering
defects of sight or hearing by simple apparatus without requiring the services of a high-priced
expert. By adopting these test methods any manager of a large industrial establishment can satisfy
himself whether his employees are up to certain normal standards. He can even apply the tests to

himself.

Optical tests can be conducted by securing an ordinary letter chart such as is used by oculists and opticians. Seat the
subject twenty feet away. If he can read all the lines of letters from the largest down to the smallest his eyesight is
practically perfect. In a large percentage of cases the smaller lines of type are blurred and invisible. To detect the cause
and degree of defects of the eyes it is necessary to try out the eyes by using a trial spectacle frame and inserting
detached lenses before the right eye and the left eye alternately. One of the most common forms of defective vision is
astigmatism. A chart has been designed with a series of circles and straight lines radiating from the center. If the subject
is astigmatic he will see some of the straight lines distinctly while others will be blurred. For instance, one or two of the
vertical lines may appear very black and strong while all others will look like a hazy network. This defect, due to
unevenness of the spherical surface of the eyeball, is easily corrected with properly ground glasses.

Defects in hearing can be easily determined by means of an "acoumeter." This little instrument measures the acuteness of
the hearing very accurately by means of shot dropped from varying heights upon strips of glass, copper and cardboard.

[57]

[58]

[59]

[60]

[61]

[62]

[63]

[64]

Mental

Friction and

Inner

Whirlwinds

Prominent

Traits of Great

Achievers

Why a Man
Breaks Down

How to

Economize

Effort

How Your
Mental
Capital is
Dissipated

Tests with this device indicate whether the subject's hearing is above or below normal.

Stop wasting your energy.

Heretofore you have used your powers in a more or less haphazard way, with a vast amount of
waste and no efficient direction. From now on you are to exercise more intelligence in this respect
and make all your energies contribute to your business progress and your personal success.

You are losing power in fruitless outward activities.

You are losing power in the thinking of useless thoughts. You cannot stop the ceaseless activity of the mind. But you
can conserve its forces by directing them into channels that are worth while.

You are losing power in a turmoil of inward mental strains and inharmonies. Catch yourself at some moment when you
are forging ahead in a crowded day's work. You will then see what an inner whirlwind of excitement is in progress,
what stresses and strains are at work, what contrary impulses, what frictions and obstacles are being overcome.

Now, to the engineer every one of these words—friction, obstacle, strain—spells loss of efficiency, and in this Course
we shall teach you how you may do away with antagonistic impulses, may bring your combined mental forces to bear
upon the common enemy, and may hurl yourself into the struggles of business and practical life with a joyful and
headlong impetuosity that no obstacle can withstand.

Professor Walter Dill Scott, of Northwestern University, has said: "In studying the lives of
contemporary business men, two facts stand out pre-eminently. The first is that their labors have
brought about results that to most of us would have seemed impossible. Such men appear as giants
in comparison with whom ordinary men sink to the size of pygmies. The second fact, which a study

of successful business men (or any class of successful men) reveals, is that they never seem rushed for time.

"Such men have time to devote to objects in no way connected with their business. It cannot be regarded as accidental
that this characteristic of mind is found so commonly among successful men during the years of their most fruitful labor.
According to the American ideal, the man who is sure to succeed is the one who is continuously 'keyed up to concert
pitch'—who is ever alert and is always giving attention to his business or profession."

And again: "It is not necessarily true that the greatest and most constant display of energy accompanies the greatest
presence of energy. The tug-boat on the river is constantly blowing off steam and making a tremendous display of
energy, while the ocean liner proceeds on its way without noise and without commotion. The man who frets and fumes,
who is nervous and excited, is strung up to such a pitch that energy is being dissipated in all directions."

Many business men know they are going at a pace that kills, and at the same time they feel that they are accomplishing
too little. For such the pertinent question is, How may I reduce the expenditure of energy without reducing the efficiency
of my labor?

One of the busiest and most efficient men in England is quoted as having explained his own accomplishment of big
results with the least expenditure of effort: "By organizing myself to run smoothly, as well as my business; by schooling
myself to keep cool, and to do what I have to do without expending more nervous energy on the task than is necessary;
by avoiding all needless friction. In consequence, when I finish my day's work, I feel nearly as fresh as when I started."

The late Professor James, of Harvard University, often referred to as the founder of modern
psychology, spoke thus disparagingly of untrained effort: "Your convulsive worker breaks down
and has bad moods so often that you never know where he may be when you most need his help,
—he may be having one of his 'bad days.' We say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse and have to be sent
abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. I suspect that this is an immense mistake, I suspect that neither
the nature nor the amount of our work is accountable for the frequency and the severity of our breakdowns, but that
their cause lies rather in those absurd feelings of hurry and having no time, in the breathlessness and tension, that anxiety
of feature and solicitude for results, that lack of inner harmony and ease, in short, by which with us the work is apt to be
accompanied."

The fact is that to be a truly busy man you must be never in a hurry. You must work systematically.
You must economize effort. You must permit no distractions and do your work leisurely. You must
take time to think things over in a natural way. You must waste no thoughts in business hours on
social or pleasurable pursuits that would dissipate your mental capital. You must work when you

work, and you may play when you play, but your business must be the most fascinating of games and the only one you
play during business hours.

Another thing you need is poise. One trouble with you now is that you waste your priceless powers
in useless anxiety.

The minute business falls off you begin to worry. You fritter your mental energies in fretting until you
are incapable of real thought, and being unable to think your way out you get excited.

Remember it is all just a game, and you are in it only for the fun of the thing. You will never win out if you persist in

[65]

[66]

[67]

[68]

[69]

[70]

[71]

[72]

Conquering
Indecision

Why

"Christian
Science"
Works

How to

Release Pent-

Up Power

Proper Ratio
Between Work

and Rest

Determining
Your Norm of

Efficiency

tearing your hair.

Before he crossed the Rubicon Julius Cæsar was staggered at the greatness of the undertaking before him. The more he
reflected and took counsel of his friends, the greater loomed the difficulties of the attempt and the more appalling the
calamities his passage of that river would bring upon the Roman world. But when at last with the cry, "The die is cast!"
he plunged into the river, there was an end for him to mental dissension, a freedom to plan and execute, an expansion of
courage and power.

So it will be with you. With doubt and uncertainty the pressure may be high in the gauge, but the
engine does not move. Make up your mind, and you release energies previously wasted in conflicts
between opposing thought complexes struggling for supremacy.

A fine illustration of this is shown in the religious experience known as conversion. To the convert,
conversion means the profound acceptance of a mighty spiritual truth. It means positive knowledge
taking the place of doubt or indifference. Conflicting ideas are no longer present in his
consciousness. Pent-up energies are released. He wants to do things. His soul is fired with
overmastering impulses to action. He wants to go forth and preach the gospel of his faith. He is
lifted to a high plane of exhilaration. He experiences the "peace that passeth understanding."

"Christian Science," "Truth," "The New Thought," and similar movements all achieve their really marvelous results in
much the same way. All proclaim doctrines of exuberant optimism, having a tendency to banish fear-thoughts and self-
consciousness and self-depreciation, and to set up in their stead ideas of courage and of achievement and of individual
power. If these teachings are successful—that is to say, if they inherently possess the right appeal for the particular
individual—they have the happy effect of begetting a stoical indifference to petty physical disorders and social vexations
and bringing about a concentration upon the main business of life of the mental energies thus previously wasted.

Decide the matter that is troubling you. Make an end of hesitation and uncertainty and fear. Your
very act of decision will release large stores of pent-up mental power and add immeasurably to
your effectiveness.

So long as you are in doubt and perplexity conflicting ideas and impulses balance each other. You are not then a man of
action; you are a wavering coward. You are afflicted with paralysis of will and mental stagnation.

Decide the matter—that is to say, let one mental picture assume a greater vividness than the other until it
possesses your soul—and forthwith the banked fires of your mental energy will burst into flame.

Another thing: Stop wasting your time.

How much time do you spend in rest and relaxation? How much should you spend? Can you answer these questions
accurately?

Thomas A. Edison has contended for years that four hours' sleep a day was sufficient for any man.
He has conducted experiments with a large number of men, giving careful attention to matters of
diet and exercise, and the results have seemed in a measure to support his theory.

Dr. Fred W. Eastman reports that owing to pressure of work he was recently unable to get more than three or four
hours' sleep out of the twenty-four during a period of many months, and that so far from being hurt by it he gained five
pounds. He says: "If restoration during sleep is a task so relatively small, the question arises whether, in order to
complete restoration, it is necessary for us to spend so much time in sleep as we do. Perhaps on account of popular
opinion and personal habit, we waste much time in this jelly-fish condition that could more profitably be spent in active
pursuit of our ambitions. The answer, of course, depends upon the nature of our occupations. If there is muscular effort
involved, with a correspondingly large amount of waste in the cells and blood, eight h...